As is well known, fuel dispensers typically comprise one or more displays which provide information to a customer dispensing fuel. Such information may include the price per unit of fuel, the fuel grade, the total volume of the transaction, and the total price of the transaction. Additional information provided to a customer on the display may include advertising, merchandising, and/or multimedia presentations.
For various reasons, including the expense of hiring one or more attendants, retail service stations in many Western nations increasingly offer fuel to customers only in a “self-service” arrangement, meaning that customers must dispense fuel themselves. However, service stations in developing nations often offer fuel to customers only in a “full-service” arrangement, wherein attendants dispense fuel for the customers while the customers remain in their vehicles. In these latter, attendant-operated arrangements, an attendant may provide a customer with a handheld device that is in electronic communication with the fuel dispenser. This device may allow the customer to view information about the fueling transaction while the customer remains in his or her vehicle. These devices may be wired to the dispenser or may communicate wirelessly with the dispenser using the Bluetooth or ZigBee communication standards.
These handheld devices, however, present several problems for operators of retail service stations. For example, because such devices are custom made for a single purpose they can be expensive to purchase and implement. Further, customers may accidentally (or intentionally) drive away without returning the devices. Also, the high transaction volume at many service stations results in constant use of and damage to the devices, which may require their frequent replacement.